Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1887-02-16
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.
EDITED BY THE w. G. Il. L.
ICONCLUDED. !

The mystery of mysteries, the wondel
OF wonders, is that the Christian WOrlC
can look on with such comparative i'll
difference when the evil of intemperancG
Is SO enormous, the remedy 80 simple
and the power so manifestly in the hands
OF the wise and good.
We pay millions of dollars annually in
this city on what we facetiously call
CHARITIES AND CORRECTION. 1t is a
broad farce. That is the tax we pay to
support and enrich the manufactors of
ana dealers in intoxicating liquors. 1t
is not charity; there is no correction IN
1t. 1t is the sum that we pay every year
III order that men may feed the cursed
appetite for drink which begets the pow
erty and the crime which these millions
pay for.
There is not an intelligent Christian
who does not know that the Sums and
cellars and miserable tenement into
which disease and wretchedness and vice
with all the horrors of unmitigated pow
erty are huddled in agony unspeakable,
the Jails and asylums and hospitals for
the poor, the diseased and the criminal,
all, ALL are made for those brought
down to their depths of shame and sin
by the agency, direct or indirect, of in
diligence in strong drink.
Judges on the bench testify as witness
hot ho Of is hn
fruit of intemperance. The ministers of
charity tell us that this vice is the moth
of poverty. If the sixteen persons now
in the Tombs charged with homicide
would tell us why they are there, the
uniform awful testimony would be lit is
all of drlnk-the cursed drink
In view of these facts, Ssshould it be diff
f1cult to create a public sentiment tVat
will put the sale of intoxicating drinks
on the same basis with the sale of pOIs-
Gus? If the State may regulate and
brohibit under certain restrictions, the
sale of the we'll known poisons, it may
with far greater propriety prohibit or re-
strain the sale of Intoxicating liquors.
The State makes laws to protect the
brutes from being abused. have known
of man who was arrested for driving
lame horse, confined all night and two
more days and nights, and then brought
up for examination and honorably dis
charged. If the State may legislate IN
this way to protect brutes, thousand
times more may it legislate to retain the
sale of that which is the greatest enemy
to the peace and prosperity of the COM
munity.
But who is to procure this legiilation?
The answer is that every Christian citi-
zen is bound to talk, to labor, and to
pray for such legislation.
The pulpit should 1uore clearly and
frequently reason of temperance as we'll
as of righteousness and judgment to
come. The press ought to urge this
subject far more earnestly on the public
mind. Public opinion must go before
the law, and require it.
Why is rum the master of this great
city? Because Christians, in large num-
bers, our men of respectability, wealth,
virtue and ease, have turned away in
disgust from the holes and halls where
legislators are made for the State and
the city, and have left the manufacture of
statesman to the hands of trading poll
tlcians. We might rally our dishearten-
J,on hn IN
single fight. But we shall make no such
such sudden onset. The great conserva-
tive forces Of society, on which re lance
is placed in the last resort, are slow.
The whole city groaneth travaileth in
pain to be delivered of this monster in
temperance, but not until the city has
wallowed in deeper misery and more
horrible sin and crime, will the mighty
moral forces of self-preservation, the
power of conscience, and the
instinct of impending peril, rouse the
church of God. We, as
Christians, are under one common,
blood stained banner, nailed to the cross
and on that cross One who loved us so
that He gave himself for us that the lost
might be saved. There are none in all
this world more terribly lost than the
victims of intemperance.
We are not doing our whole duty in
this matter, and it is high time we wer9.
Let us talk and pray more. Let us thu
der at the gates of the Capitol for better
laws. Let us besiege the Throne of
Grace. Perhaps the day of redemptionis